This application relates to a spherical collet received in a floating washer to mount a gas turbine nozzle liner to static structure.
Gas turbine engines are known, and typically include a compressor compressing air and delivering it into a combustion section where it is mixed with fuel and ignited. Products of this combustion pass downstream over a turbine rotor, driving it to rotate. The turbine rotor in turn drives the compressor rotor.
Downstream of the turbine rotors, the products of combustion exit through an exhaust nozzle. A liner typically faces the hot products of combustion, and must be mounted to static structure. Mounting the liner has raised challenges, in that the connection is subject to a number of stresses.
As an example, the mounting hardware must accommodate large misalignments between the static structure and the liner due to tolerances, complex shape, restricted physical access, significant pressure loads, high temperatures and resultant thermal growth mismatches.
Typically, the mounting hardware which has been utilized has been quite complex, and has not always allowed adequate adjustment.
In one known mounting arrangement, a pivot connection secures the liner to the static structure. As the liner is exposed to heat, it can expand in an axial direction. As the liner moves due to this expansion, the pivot connection causes a link arm connected to the static structure to move through an arc. With this movement, the mount structure may be pulled away from the liner.
In other challenges, the distance between the static structure and the liner to be accommodated by the mount structure must be precisely sized. This raises challenges due to tolerances on the liner or the static structure. Thus, the mounting structure must be specifically rigged for the particular liner and static structure, which of course raises the labor and machining costs.
In other arrangements, shims are necessary to accommodate the specific sizes.